Mayank at Desicritics has his own theories to these recurring malfuntions – it is a way to get noticed he says.

A regular feature of these fashion weeks have been wardrobe malfunctions. The Lakme India Fashion Week began on the 28th of March, and in the past three days has already seen two incidents of wardrobe malfunctions. The term “Wardrobe Malfunction” caught public attention after the Janet Jackson fiasco at the superbowl. But in the Indian context, it becomes more important.

A few years back, Negar Khan had a wardrobe malfunction on the ramp, where she got noticed by a music video maker. How, after that she went on to become the queen of music videos and item-numbers, is history. So, for any model looking to tread this path, a wardrobe malfunction is an easy way to get noticed.

There was some vague news about the 25 paise coins going off circulation. Everybody, including me, tried to dump their 25 paise coins as soon as they could. Until, the BEST hiked its ticket fares. Suddenly the humble 50 paise coin became the most popular of all coins! And since there weren’t enough of them around, the bus conductors started handing back 50 paise in the 25 paise denomination.

Much to my irritation, they would hand over 25 paise coins, but wouldn’t accept them back because ’25 paise nahi chalega'(25 paise is obsolete). Ofcourse 50 paise is not big money, but when you add up the daily costs it becomes substantial! And then there was the problem of storing a whole lot of 25 paise coins in my wallet.

Recently I was witness to a bitter exchange of words between a passenger and the conductor. The passenger was of the opinion that the conductor should take back the 2-gleaming-25-paise coins he had just given him, and give him a 50 paise coin instead. The conductor insisted that the passenger shut up and keep it with him.

Cutting out the histronics:

The conductors points were:
1. 25 paise works in the BEST.
2. By rejecting 25 paise coins, the passenger was helping the big business barons profit, because they would charge 25 paise extra for commodites. Say you’re buying something worth Rs 40.25, you’d end up paying Rs 40.50.

The passengers points were:
1. The next conductor may not even accept the 25 paise coins.
2. He may never travel by BEST for a long time, where is he supposed to keep 2 coins safe?
3. He’d pay Rs 40 for the commodity.

The conductor looked around for support, and a lot of Marathi manus supported him, labelling the passenger and ‘kanjus’ (stingy) and various expletives. The poor passenger tried replying for sometime, and then started looking out of the window with a frown on his face, and the two innocuous looking coins in his palm.

While looking for an image of 25 paise coins, I came across World Coin Gallery’s collection of coins of India Republic.

It needs a little updating, they don’t have the ‘dollar’ or the Rs 5 coin in their collection. Ha! We got dollars too :-)

The Metroblogging family is truly global. Over 44 cities and counting are represented under one domain. However till today, you had to visit each city by that cities feed. That was a real bummer. So we all decided to pray to the MB Gods to make our lives simple.

Please…oh please give us one feed for the whole wide world. One feed that will inform us of everything going on in the Metroblogging world.

Over the last few days there have reports of about the government finally moving ahead with the proposed Pedder Road Fly Over link

Talking to reporters at Vidhan Bhawan in Mumbai, Deshmukh said the proposed flyover ”is a necessity” and the government is in the process of ”obtaining necessary clearances” to begin construction on the project by this year-end. [ link ]

On the heels of that announcement comes another one. Firstly, for every newsworthy story in Bombay, there has to be a celebrity attached to the cause. And in this case it is India’s Singing Sisters.

In the past there were stories about how the sisters Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosale had threatened to leave Bombay for good if the fly over was built. They live on Pedder Road and they feel that the passing of the fly over from there will disrupt their neighborhood.

And because of their celebrity status, the politicians are out to appease them

Maharashtra Minister for Public Works (state public sector units) Anil Deshmukh will meet melody queen Lata Mangeshkar and her sister Asha Bhosale on Tuesday and convince them of the need to commence work on the Peddar Road flyover. [ link ]

Whether the fly over is a good idea or not is a completely different issue, and not the point of discussion of this post. It is in all respects a short term solution. This is typical of most infrastructure decisions taken in the country !!

Lata continues to say

the actual issue was being sidelined by the speculation on whether or not she would continue living in Mumbai.

“Whether I live in Mumbai or not is nobody’s business and it will certainly have nothing to do with whether or not the flyover is built here or not. I am being targeted as though I have committed a crime,” said an agitated Mangeshkar.

“Every resident of Pedder Road is scared. This is a proven seismological zone. If there is drilling on the road, the foundations of many buildings will be shaken.” [ link ]

Now the crux of this post is……Will Lata and Asha Leave ??

Do you think that they will stand by their word and leave the city for good ?? And do you think that the city will be better off with them leaving, rather than holding the citizenry ransom ??

I personally think that they wont leave. What do you think.

Do you want to put a wager on this ?? If you think she will leave, then how soon do you think they will leave after construction starts. In a month, six months, year, after completion ??

But before I start, I would like to thank each and every reader for their valuable comment(s). The response has been overwhelming. I hope at the end, this awareness does make a huge difference to the lives of the patient workers.

Day before one of the lady employees called in, generally inquiring about the post and its responses. She was also wondering if any newspaper agency had taken interest in printing their cause. The eagerness in her voice could not be missed.

I was pleased to inform her of the great acknowledgment from our blog world, but beyond that there was no concrete help I had to offer. Somehow I feel I have let them down…if only something more would come out of this virtual publicity. I hung up promising to drop by later with the post printouts.

At 5:30 in the evening I was there once again sitting amongst the workers. All searching for some glimmer of hope; seeing and reading the posts with its various comments.

Unfortunately the court hearing only brought about an extension to the case. Another hearing is to take place on the 19th of April. The management asked for more time to settle matters, preferring an out-of-court settlement. They are still stuck on the 50,000 amount, not willing to consider the workers demands.

One worker further said “Knowing our judicial system, we expect something similar on the 19th too. God only knows when our misery will come to an end.”

The management is unnecessarily prolonging the settlement; the delay is costing the workers, their valuable time and energy. Hence they are going to appeal for a two months (or further) salary. An attendance record has been maintained from the 10th of February.

Each and every one of them thanked me profusely for my efforts. Appreciation glittered in their eyes.

It deeply hurts to see their state….committed workers with family and children, now on the streets….battling their cause day-in and day-out. No one to hold their hand!

What hurts more is to read comments suggesting, that workers should go out looking for another job rather than fighting for their rights. How can one close his/her eyes to a brutal reality? Theirs is no more young blood, getting over and moving on after a chapter like this is not easy.

It’s even more pathetic to see media giving importance to an actor’s new born baby but updating on pressing issues is of no concern to them.

We don’t need strong movies (Rang de basanti) and documentaries to inspire our younger generation, these people and their lives are more than enough. They stand united, fighting for what they deserve….one fine day…the world WILL listen!

Last week Peter Hitchens from the Daily Mail, London had written to me in connection to a story he was doing on BBC’s decision to rename Bombay to Mumbai and the renaming of the cities worldwide . He asked me whether Bombay was still called Bombay or is it Mumbai. We exchanged a few mails on the confusion.
The final result – His article in The Mail on Sunday column on Sunday.

IRRITATED by the way most of the media have taken to referring to Bombay as

‘Mumbai’ during the recent Test match, I did some research.

Supporters of this move are mostly making fools of themselves. The politically correct might like to know that many people in Bombay refuse to

use the new name. The local High Court and stock exchange still bear the name ‘Bombay’.

And the move to get rid of the 400-year-old (Portuguese) name came from Hindu nationalists, whom the BBC would certainly describe as ‘Rightwing’ if it knew anything about them, which I suspect it doesn’t.

We could avoid all this if we just called famous cities and countries by the names we have used for years. Since I don’t call Prague ‘Praha’, Warsaw Warszawa’ or Paris ‘Paree’, I don’t see why I should have to call Peking ‘Beijing’.

In a way it’s a compliment to them that we have an English name for them. I don’t object if Italians call London ‘Londra’. The BBC doesn’t call Burma ‘Myanmar’, or Rangoon ‘Yangon’. Nor does it call Dublin ‘Baile Atha Cliath’, its official name since 1922.

By the way, if ‘Bombay’ is ‘Mumbai’ then oughtn’t they to call India ‘Bharata’? And did you know that Croatia is really Hrvatska?

Singer-actress Jennifer Lopez will perform for the first time in India when she plays a concert in Mumabi on April 23 to promote her latest album. The Latin beauty is currently touring the world to promote her album “Rebirth” besides doing other projects, including charity work.

For the first time, she has added India and the Middle East to her tour itinerary.

Though Lopez’s previous planned visits to India never materialised, she had promised her fans she would make it up. Her website too marks April 23 as the date for her live gig in Mumbai.